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Wednesday, May 4, 2016

There was once a time when my business trips consisted of India, Vietnam, Hong Kong and San Francisco - now the only place I get to go is Edinburgh. I've changed careers so overseas trips are pretty unlikely these days, which I'm OK with as there are lots of other good things about my job.

I was in Edinburgh again recently and while I normally stay on site at my company's premises, lack of space meant I had to find somewhere else. Being conscious of costs I chose the Premier Inn at Edinburgh Park, not far from my company's head office.

The hotel was much like any other Premier Inn - in fact I think they pride themselves on being a very consistent chain. The room was surprisingly big and though the amenities are fairly basic (a soap dispenser rather than miniature bottles for instance), it's what I expected and good value for money.

It was the first time (ever? certainly in a long time) that I've had dinner at a Premier Inn. The menu is vast with things to suit all tastes - it reminded me a little of a Wetherspoons in that respect. They were offering a meal deal for £23.99 including a two-course dinner, drink and breakfast - I decided that was good value for money - normally their cooked breakfast is £8.99 or continental breakfast £6.99. In the end the main course I had was £11.99, the starter (which I could have done without) was £5.45 so effectively my drink was free - it saved a few pounds at least.

I chose the tempura prawns to start which came with a sweet chilli sauce for dipping, but I found the batter too greasy and overpowered the flavour of the prawns - this isn't something I would bother ordering again.

The main course on the other hand was much better. I fancied a pizza and saw they had three main varieties and a 'choose your own' section. I'm very picky about pizza toppings and prefer to make my own combination if possible. I love seafood pizza so chose the prawns and hot smoked salmon flakes (which I've never had on a pizza before -it's usually prawns with tuna) and some red onion. There was a choice of cheese and I went for camembert - a bit weird on pizza perhaps and I wasn't sure what it would be like but I thought Id try it. It was absolutely delicious - more pizzas should come with camembert!

Service was friendly and not that fast - I was starting to wonder what had happened to my pizza at one point -but I'd taken my Kindle since I was dining alone and was quite happy waiting, as all I had to go back to was my laptop upstairs with some work to do in the evening!

Breakfast the next morning offered a reasonable selection of hot and cold foods and 'smoothies' though they tasted a bit watery (which is fine as unlimited jugs of pure fruit smoothies would cost Premier Inn a fortune!). I much prefer a sausage sandwich to a full English (or Scottish) breakfast so that's what I had, with two hash browns on the side and a cup of tea. Check out was almost instantaneous and overall the stay was quite a pleasant experience. This isn't the most central Premier Inn in Edinburgh but good for the airport or a lot of companies that are based on this side of town.